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WASHINGTON -- New tensions between Guantanamo Bay detainees and the
US military have prompted 89 prisoners to resume a hunger strike that
so far has left seven hospitalized, a spokesman for the military
operation confirmed yesterday.

The prisoners, protesting their living conditions and their
continued detention without trials, had undertaken a widespread hunger
strike that ended in July. Word that the hunger strike had resumed was
disclosed yesterday by Clive Stafford Smith, a British human rights
lawyer who returned from visiting clients at the base a week ago.

Smith warned that many detainees have grown so desperate that they
intend to starve themselves to death in an effort to create a public
relations disaster for the US military. No detainee has died at the
prison since it opened in January 2002, but, in the view of lawyers who
have talked to clients, there have been signs of extreme frustration
this summer.

According to Smith's newly declassified notes, his client Binyam
Mohammed, a British refugee from Ethiopia, told him on Aug. 11 that
many among the prison population had decided to resume their hunger
strike. The decision was sparked by rumors of a violent interrogation
session and two rough extractions of detainees from their cells, as
well as a new incident of alleged desecration of a copy of the Koran,
the Muslim holy book.

The detainees viewed the rumors as a violation of an agreement
struck at the end of July to bring an end to the hunger strike, Smith
said. Meeting with detainee representatives, the military had promised
a series of improvements to living conditions if they would start
eating again.

''They have betrayed our trust," Smith's declassified notes quote
Mohammed as saying. ''Therefore the strike must begin again. Some have
already begun. . . . I do not plan to stop until I either die or we are
respected. People will definitely die."

Army Colonel Brad Blackner, a spokesman for the prison operation,
confirmed yesterday that ''detainees began fasting to protest their
continued detention" on Aug. 8. He said the military views this as a
continuation of the July hunger strike, not a new one.

''We are monitoring some detainees who have missed at least nine
meals over a 72-hour period, which we define as a hunger strike,"
Blackner said.

Smith was the last attorney to return from Guantanamo because the
military did not allow any detainee representatives to visit the base
last week. He represents several dozen detainees, but only his notes of
his conversation with Mohammed have been partially declassified. ''This
is all that is unclassified for now, but you can imagine that there is
much more," he said. ''This is very urgent, as you can infer from the
statement that if they stopped eating on Aug. 11 or so, this means that
some of them could be getting in serious physical problems by the next
week or so."

But Blackner said that the prison had dealt with hunger strikes
regularly since the start, and that medical staff were closely
monitoring the fasting detainees. Camp policy is to force-feed any
detainee ''to avert death from fasting and from dehydration," he said.

Smith's report of the resumption of the hunger strike was made as
the military has declassified the notes of other lawyers who visited
the base in the last month, clearing them to disclose what their
clients told them about what has been happening this summer.

Several lawyers said their clients reported that about 200 of the
500 prisoners participated in the July hunger strike, resulting in
several dozen hospitalizations requiring intravenous fluids. The
military said the number was closer to 100. Many detainees started to
eat again around July 28, after the military promised to make
concessions that allegedly varied from specific improvements to their
living conditions to assurances they would receive trials.

Detainees were allegedly promised better access to books and that
they would receive bottled drinking water with each meal, instead of
having to drink what they considered unpalatable water out of the sinks
in their cells. The military said last week it was seeking to expand
the size of its library. Several attorneys said the military had
started supplying bottled water in early August.

Jonathan Hafetz, who visited the base in late July to meet with a
Qatari client, said his newly declassified notes indicate that the
prisoners were primarily interested in improving their physical and
religious conditions.

''He attributed the strike to the bad water and the lack of respect
for Islam," he said. ''For example, guards laughed at prisoners when
they are praying and disrespect the Koran when they go into a cell to
[restrain] a prisoner."

Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, who visited his six Bahraini clients in late
July and early August, said things did improve after the agreement. In
a cellblock where at least one of his clients is housed, he said, the
military began turning off loud industrial fans during the
calls-to-prayer.

''It was also said that international law would be recognized at
Guantanamo, whatever that means," Colangelo-Bryan said. ''It seems
there was a probationary period . . . and if things did not change
within that time, then a hunger strike of more severe proportions could
be undertaken."

By the end of the first week of August, there was rising discontent
among detainees who believed that they had been misled in order to get
them to start eating again. Lawyer David Remes said his Yemeni clients
told him during the first week of August that detainees were starting
to doubt the promises that had been made in order to get them to relent.

''There is a sense that the government tricked them into ending
their hunger strike by promising them the moon because the government
couldn't tolerate a situation in which detainees were placing
themselves at risk of death or serious injury as a result of being on
the hunger strike," Remes said.